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1. Home by Phillip Phillips–I don’t follow American Idol anymore, even from a distance, so I watched this video before looking up the facts, and while I find the whole thing pleasant, the whole thing made complete sense after hearing this. Phillips seems to be a huge combo of influences, from Ryan Adams, to Arcade Fire, to Mumford and Sons, to the Dave Matthews Band, that even in this song, as pleasant as it is, there’s no sense of an individual’s personality behind it. The lyrics are vaguely positive, he’s singing to someone about the massive change, and that he’s going to make this place your home. Of course we, as listeners, are supposed to take this as his statement about suddenly winning American Idol and becoming a big star, at the same time, while the whole thing is extremely pleasant, I don’t see this as being a real statement of his personal feelings of anything, so part of it rings just the teensiest bit false. Then again it is pop culture, and as product this semblance of confessionalism comes off as a thousand times more real than most of whatever else is on the top 40. The video shows him on tour, like he’s having this great viewing of America, lots of diners, some beautiful landscape images, but it’s all so slick that it certainly doesn’t show things off as homespun or intimate, more like aw shucks I’m a big star, and it’s wonderful, and I love seeing everything and having this experience. Which is all good and fine, I suppose, but I”m more interested in seeing him develop as an artist and get away from the whole American Idol thing, as earnest as he is, I see some real talent there, hidden under a mile of gloss. I guess what I’m saying the most is if you’re going to be homespun Americana, really do it, and put away the high production and blocked shots.

2. Proof of Heaven by Eben Alexander–This is the book about the Neuroscientist who had a near-death-experience. I haven’t thought about NDEs in quite a long time, since talk-shows were obsessed with him for a brief period when I was a kid, however, my interests have strayed elsewhere since. One thing that makes my detectors begin to go off is that this book claims to be a scientific proof about the afterlife, while in reality, this isn’t a scientific proof of anything: it’s one man’s subjective experience. I’m not saying this makes the book worthless, but it’s certainly not the mind-blowing revelation it purports to be. Also, I work with surgeons, and I love them, but I also know, while being bright people, they are as filled with human quirks as the rest of us, so the fact that Alexander is a neurosurgeon does not wow me in itself. I highly suspect that this book will confirm whatever it is that people look for in it on either side of the argument. That being said, it’s interesting to see those points of revelation in people’s lives, whether it be near death, or a struggle, or a realization, and how lives can completely change direction due to them. In that sense this book is incredibly life-affirming and upholds people’s capacity for reinvention, and for that reason I think it’s a good thing.